Fires

I suspect that, by now, everyone knows that we were largely unaffected by the fires here in San Diego. One of the big fires is quite a ways north of us, and the other big one is far to the south. They did evacuate the Scripps Ranch area on Monday, just on the other side of Interstate 15 from where we are located (Mira Mesa), but we didn't need to leave. Those evacuations near us were precautionary at any rate; the fires weren't really an imminent threat to that community. The Scripps Ranch folks were back in their homes later on Tuesday.

The authorities learned a lot since the Cedar fire in 2003. They decided to open a ton of evacuation centers and move as many people out of their homes as was reasonable. By doing so, they avoided what could have been a tremendous number of injuries or deaths and freed up resources to defend properties and structures.

So we're out of danger. Thanks to everyone for your concerns, your thoughts, and your prayers. Out hearts go out to those who have lost their homes and we're truly grateful that we're safe.

The Tasman songbook

Here are some of the songs Tasman likes to sing. She usually doesn't get all the words quite right, but the tune is generally there. Anyone listening would be able to tell what she was trying to sing.

• "ABC song." You can see a video of her singing this here. This is probably her best song.
• "Itsy Bitsy Spider." She likes doing the hand motions, especially when she gets to "wash the spider out."
• "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."
• "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." This one's funny because the last line of the song is the first, so she thinks she's starting the song over and she'll just keep singing it over and over again.
  
• "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam." We discussed this one here on the blog a while back.
• "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." She's getting better at the accompanying motions.
• "Little Bunny Foo Foo". She sings very little of this, but she gets really enthusiastic when it comes time for "bopping them on the head".
• "Five Little Monkeys." Meme taught her this one. (Meme—pronounced "may-may"—is what she calls Kirsti's mom.)
  

There's a fair number of songs she sings from TV shows.

• "Elmo's World."
  
• "Backyardigans." In addition to the main theme, she can sing just about any of the songs they sing on this show. In particular, she likes "Racing Day", "Treasure", "Secret Agents", "Surf's Up", "Stomp, Stomp, Stomp", "Mysterious, Very Mysterious", and "We're Going to Mars".
• "Blue's Clues." She'll sing along to the two different theme songs the show has had, and all the other songs they sing regularly.
  
• "Franklin."
• "Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!"
• "Jack's Big Music Show." She also likes to sing a song from one of the episodes that goes "Hop, hop, hop. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Flap, Flap. Coo coo ca choo."
  

Our favorite is when she makes up songs on request. We'll say, "Tas, can you sing a song about giraffes?" And then she'll launch into an improvised song about giraffes.

The power of suggestion

It doesn't seem that I blog because I have one story about Tasman, like Sean does. I usually think, "I should blog about that" a number of times in the day when she does something that I think is funny. In general I think she's a really delightful kid. Probably all kids are, really. It is fun to see how a person learns and interprets the world. Anyhow, this is what Tasman is up to these days.

She has learned how to jump, so every now and then it is her preferred method of traveling. It's not a terribly efficient way to move, but it is fun to watch her jump just because she can. Tasman especially likes to jump in her room before bed. She'll jump from the bathroom door after her bath over to the changing table to put on her pajamas and then she jumps over to daddy to read a book. I'm sure the neighbors love it. We should send them a link to this blog so they'll know what that thumping noise is every night.

Tas also has started to talk along with Backyardigans episodes she's familiar with. She'll do the actions too. So, it's the mostly unintelligible, one-woman variety show in our living room every day. She does better with the songs. Yesterday she jabbered along with Pablo while he talked about surfing and wiping out and then sang "Surf's up. Ho Daddy!" While dancing around the room. She gets the sentence lengths and some of the words right, so clearly she has some memory for the way the episode goes. It's amusing.

She also mutters along with Sean or I as we say her nightly prayers. We have a hard time not chuckling. In an effort to reinforce her good behavior, we started praising her enthusiastically for being reverent if she keeps her arms folded and her eyes closed during the prayer. Well, it just didn't take very long before she was jumping up after the "amen", clapping exuberantly and saying, "Yay! Nana so reverent!" She obviously has a healthy sense of accomplishment.

My favorite new Tas-ism though, is what inspires the title of this entry. In the last 2 weeks Tasman has started saying, "alright." The word itself is not as funny as the way she uses it. I think all parents probably do a fair amount of parroting what their child says since the child won't say the word exactly the right way and repeating it back is a way to both model the correct pronunciation and make sure that you've really understood what the kid wants. Well, Tasman has taken up saying "alright" every time I ask her a yes/no question she wants to respond affirmatively to. It usually goes something like this:
Tasman will say: "Wanna watch Bardans?" (everything is a question still - even when she's just making a statement and Bardans is how she now says Backyardigans.)
I'll say (to confirm): "You want to watch Backyardigans?"
And in her sweet little voice Tasman will respond: "awright."

This exchange always makes it seem that whatever it is she's now going to do is my suggestion. I doubt very much that Tasman will be a wishy-washy person. After all, she comes from such opinionated and stubborn parents. Let's hope the "alright" is a sign of flexibility in her personality that allows her to go with the flow. If she can learn that now, she'll be way better off than her uptight mom.

Once I get started I seem to think of lots of other teeny things she does that make me laugh, but to spare everyone a novel, I'll have to wait until next time. I will post some pictures - because I love looking at pictures. I was going through some of our old photos this morning and found these of Tas taken this time last year. She grew up so fast! Guess that's what happens.

A package from Granna

This morning, the doorbell rang. It was the FedEx guy with a package addressed to Tasman from her Granna (AKA, my mom). Tassie eyed the box with anxious anticipation while I found some scissors. After I sliced through the tape, she threw open the flaps and . . . what a sight to behold! A box full of Styrofoam peanuts!

"Ooooh." Tas was in heaven. She picked up just one or two and turned them over in her hands. She cautiously applied some pressure to one until it snapped. She squealed with delight.

I encouraged her to go a little deeper into the box. She moved a few peanuts off to the side, just to find more peanuts underneath. She was happy just to have a whole box of Styrofoam peanuts, but I knew there was something a little deeper.

"Keep going," I urged. Tasman seemed to get the idea, because now she was sweeping large quantities of peanuts out of the box and onto the floor. A tiny patch of plastic appeared. "Tas, do you see the bag?" Within seconds, every last peanut was deposited on the living room floor, exposing a large grocery sack. She tore open the sack and discovered that five books were inside.

Oh, this is the most exciting it has been in a while. This definitely beats watching Backyardigans. We turned off the TV and Tas started flipping through the books, naming the various animals and other objects on each page. A few books down in the pile was a book called A Day in the Life of a Princess. Attached to the side of the book was a magic wand, and attached to the back cover was a box in which we found a crown and a little tutu-like skirt. I quickly put the skirt on her and got the crown to fit around her head. Meanwhile, she discovered that the wand made a twinkly sound when she waved it.

So for the rest of the day, Tas has been a pretty princess. We made a little video to show her in the outfit and to document the mess in our living room. She decided to sing a little, so you also can see her sing her ABC's. (What a ham!)

Thanks, Granna!

Time out update

Well, we're seeing some interesting results from our institution of "time out" for Tasman. (Not to be confused with "Time out for women". Apparently, they now have "Time out for couples" too, but I digress.) At first the time outs seemed to be pretty good for helping Tas reset and get over her tantrums quicker. But one night, we were upstairs getting ready to put her to bed and she threw a tantrum. We threatened her with time out, but she continued acting out. So we hauled her downstairs, set up the time out box, turned on the timer, and put her in. She lied down, face down, in the middle of the time out box, and cried. When the minute was up, we picked her up out of the box, but she flailed and thrashed around even more, screaming even louder than before, "WAN LIE DOWN TIME OUT!!!" Apparently, she wanted to go back in. Uh, I don't think that makes a very good punishment if she wants to be there.

So we had our concerns about the efficacy of the time out box, but it turns out that that night was an isolated incident. In fact, it's starting to look like the threat of time out might actually be a slight deterrent, which I believe is supposed to be the point of time out anyway. Now when she starts getting whiny—oh, how I hate the whining!—we say, "Do you need a time out?" This is usually enough for her to calm down a bit, stick out her lower lip a bit, and respond, "No." We really haven't needed to use it but once or twice in the last week. So things may be looking up for now.